Archive for March, 2013

Why Have a Book Called Next History?

A single question drove me to write Next History: The Girl Who Hacked Tomorrow.

What if we found a completely accurate history of our beginnings, an unbiased record that was not passed down verbally, not reimagined in every telling?

I started looking at creation myths of many cultures, located the first feminine archetype, and found scholarly input that became an energy source for every writer’s favorite question: What If?

The answers created turmoil. They pushed some of the characters toward God. Some were driven in desperate search for a demon or an angel that could redeem them. The young female protagonist is prepared to settle for death, to throw away all her money for a single chance to see her mother again. She is driven, yet too realistic to think a Devil could possibly exist. And she laughs at the idea of a bargain with God.

One thing I learned in the writing, it is the intensity of a character’s quest, not what is it, that makes the story move.

Along the way I saw an important flaw in the history and mythology around the archetypal Lilith, the first female created in Babylonian and Hebrew mythology. Did I use that? Oh yes I did.

Next History weaves big-iron predictive knowledge, a plugged-in world population, Sumerian creation myth, and a demonic presence with a hip sensibility to launch us beyond the hyperdata age toward a shifting and dangerous event horizon.

The story is a head-changing whirl toward a future world so outrageous, the survivors
will be forced to adapt, or die.

Jacket Blurb

Exquisite and resourceful Tharcia, at risk in a world where
instinctive drives have been unleashed, seeks her mother for
a final throwdown.

Her only difficulty is that Mom is dead.

Through her peculiar mix of technology and magic, Tharcia ensnares
a strange entity in a geometric prison. It is not her mother.

When Tharcia unearths an enchanting oracle from her deepest being,
her life, and the future of humanity, is about to be reprogrammed.

Will there be a collective, agonizing dive into chaos and depravity?
Will Tharcia reveal humanity’s true purpose?

Or, will nothing change at all, except for the dark fate
of one luckless girl?

Find out for yourself. I felt in the end that I had a story worth telling. It brings up the most important question humans ever face: Who am I and how do I matter to the universe? The answer belongs to you.

Matthew Fox on Benedict’s Papal Legacy and why it makes Next History relevant

Recently, NPR’s Amy Goodman interviewed excommunicated priest and author Matthew Fox on the legacy of Pope Benedict for the Catholic Church. Some of Fox’s remarks go to the heart of why I wrote Next History: The Girl Who Hacked Tomorrow, why I saw an important flaw in the history and mythology around womankind, and the archetypal Lilith, the first female created by God in Babylonian and Hebrew mythology.

Here’s Fox on why he was excommunicated:

“Number one was that I was a feminist theologian, he said. I didn’t know that was a heresy. Number two, I called God ‘Mother.’ Well, I proved that all kinds of medieval mystics called God ‘Mother,’ and so does the Bible, although not often enough.

“Number three, I prefer ‘original blessing’ to ‘original sin.’ Jesus never heard of it; no Jews ever heard of it. And they accused me of not condemning homosexuals, which of course I do not.

“They’re really Rorschach tests about what really freaks out the Vatican. And, of course, above all, it’s women and sex. And that is the agenda. Whenever there’s fundamentalism and fascism, it’s about control. That’s why the Vatican, the Taliban and Pat Robertson have this in common: They’re all freaked out by the possibility of bringing the divine feminine back, and with it, of course, the equal rights of women.”

Fox’s ‘divine feminine’ remark resonated with me, because the construction of Next History: The Girl Who Hacked Tomorrow originated with a single question: What would it be like if we discovered a crystal clear record of our creation times, historically accurate and not mythologized or distorted by politics? I discovered that the Akashic Record could fill that need. How could humans find out about the Record in large numbers? The whales could deliver it.

The Whales? Oh yes, I forgot, it’s science fiction.

OK suppose all that stuff. What would we find out? Among other things, we might discover that the goddess feminine in the form of the mythical Lilith has been smeared and degraded since about 2300 BCE, beginning with the stories the Levite priests told about her.

Prior to that Lilith was revered for hundreds of thousands of years as the source of abundance, the font of human life, health, healing and wisdom. My pet theory is that some males cannot live with the jealousy.

Next History in the end is the story of how Lilith comes to be alive on Earth again, how women the world over rise in waking consciousness of the feminine divine and come to be seen as the equals of men in every way. Equals, not superiors, it’s how women roll. Too bad it has to be science fiction, but this is a small seed I wanted to plant for whoever reads the book.